Had a coolant line blow out right at the start of a big run

I was running a big batch of 4140 steel parts on our old Haas VF2, about fifty pieces. The first part was done, I hit cycle start for the second, and I heard this weird hiss. Next thing I know, there's coolant spraying everywhere from a line behind the spindle. It was a mess. I had to shut everything down, clean up the whole machine area, and figure out which fitting gave out. The shop lead said we lost about an hour of production time, plus the coolant. It made me start checking all the coolant lines and clamps during my morning checks now, not just the tooling and workholding. Has anyone else had a coolant line fail like that, and do you use any specific kind of hose or clamp to stop it from happening again?

3 comments

3 Comments

samreed14d agoTop Commenter

Man, that's the worst. Had a line pop on our old Fadal once, right over the control panel. Not a drop on the part, just a total shower on the keyboard. Took forever to dry it out. Now I give all the lines a good squeeze when I do my walk-around, feel for any that are getting soft.

joseph_green1314d ago

Coolant just wanted a promotion to fountain.

oliviabutler14d ago

Honestly I never saw it that way before. I always just thought of coolant as this boring car fluid. But calling it a fountain makes it sound almost... ambitious. Like it's stuck in the radiator dreaming of something better. Changes how I look at my own car now.